On the outskirts of the bustling city lies some of the newest additions to the area, a modern development area that includes the enormous mall here, as well as the giant new museum that I was standing in when I took the picture. Surrounded by high rises, the mall contains at least six floors begging [...]
We stayed in the international student dorms during our time in Yangzhou, and for a small monthly fee (around 5 dollars), a man would come by and hook up the internet for your computer. This was a huge relief after the horrors of the Zhengzhou computer labs with their limited hours, terribly slow and/or mostly [...]
A big steaming pot of freshly-made noodles with mushrooms and cabbage; add some cayenne pepper flakes and a soy-type sauce and you’ve got a delicious, satisfying dinner. That whole pot would cost me 8 yuan, about $1.14. Plus a few yuan for a cold water. YUM. Our group ate regularly with various groups of our [...]
It was Team China versus Team USA one hot day, and we were the sideline cheerleaders. They had kept this rivalry up for a number of sports: basketball, table tennis, and most certainly, soccer. We, the girls, were not the most cheery crowd, but we tried to be present when we had the time. Out [...]
I saw it on the Great Wall, I saw it on dusty temple walls, and I saw it in the concrete surrounding any oft-visited site throughout China; but the graffiti on the members of this lush bamboo garden won the prize. It was a dewy, inviting, and enchanting garden–and it never takes too long to [...]
It was a regular afternoon, and Stacey and I were either sweaty or exhausted or (probably) both, and we decided to spring for the 3-yuan (42-cent) rickshaw ride back to campus. He was confused, rightly so, by our feeble Chinese language skills, and we had tried to tell him we wanted to go to Yangzhou [...]
The very first day that the whole group was together, we spent a disgustingly humid day at Shouxi Lake that almost made us forget the sticky heat. Little enclaves were built in random spots, with wide-open window frames and benches and tables; old Chinese men were playing checkers and women could be spotted chatting in [...]